Pages

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

New Term, New Design Books!

Week 11 - Back to Class yesterday after a two week break. This term we'll do more on design and also learn various findings. To really get us comfortable with soldering we will be making a chain bracelet and fabricating a locket style clasp.
We started today with a 6mm ingot of silver and rolled it down in the rolling mill, then used the draw plates to get it down to 1.5mm wire. Then we formed and sawed our jumprings ready for lots of soldering!
Not really a lot to show for the days work - we were hanging around a bit, waiting for a free Rolling mill and draw plate - there was a bit of a traffic jam!

Waiting at home after class were some books I'd ordered from Dover Publications. Got to love those copyright free images they sell! One of the books is full of vector border and frame designs. I'd thought they'd be some good metal etching designs in them. Happily there is but a few of the designs are suitable for saw piercing too.

So, this morning I got some sawing and piercing practise in using one of the frame designs. I'm kicking myself now for not doing it in a thicker gauge of sheet. It turned out OK, I still have a bit of tidying up to do on it, but it's a bit flimsy (22gauge) to use in jewellery unless I attach it to a back plate or something. I do like it though so will have another go later in 1mm (18gauge) sheet.

2 comments:

Hey Pam I have several design books from card/glass decorating days and used them when I was enamelling, must check Dover out sounds cool.Your piercing looks great, ahem and up to now I have managed to shirk making a chain, I have the rings cut out but ummmmmm yeah lol Yvonne :)

I wished I could have avoided the chain too Yvonne. I was so careful not to overdo the solder (to avoid the bumps on the jumprings) that I underdid it on quite a few rings & didn't use enough solder - now my joins are visible! Maybe I need to do more chains for more practice ;)